Purdy Crawford Rescues the Market

The capitalist state rides to the rescue with a corporate governance model for the credit market in Canada. Don't here no crying about market interference by the state. Nope. Can't over all the applause from the vested interests.

Another nail in the coffin of the myth of the free market. It's a market and it ain't free, it's controlled by them in power. Despite all their monetarist ideology when the crisis hits they run to their nanny state.

It began in August when Quebec based National Bank, not the Central Bank, bought back its loans and shored up its Mutual Fund Altamira. Because investors, consumers, you and me, are ignorant of the market risk of some their investments.

National Bank's news release on behalf of Altamira funds may have been most educational from the investor's perspective. The bank noted that Altamira money market funds offer no assurances they can maintain their net asset value and protect against losses. It also pointed out that money market funds are not insured by Canada Deposit Insurance Corp., as are high-interest savings accounts and guaranteed investment certificates.

In shoring up the money market franchise for the mutual fund industry, National Bank has also highlighted the fact that these funds are not risk-free. This brings us back to high-interest accounts, a corner of the financial marketplace where there happens to be some stiff competition these days. The rates are higher than money market funds, fees are non-existent and federal or provincial deposit insurance offers a safety net. What a deal.

It was followed this week by the Bank of Canada joining with the private/public investment and banking sector to develop a bail out plan for institutions.

And when they say they are protecting investors ferget about it. They are protecting their investment. They are speaking of commercial investors like our pention funds and private equity as well as mutual funds.

After all the Ruling Class takes care of its own, and their investments.

A plan to rescue about $35-billion of illiquid asset-backed commercial paper moved a step forward yesterday as holders of the debt formed a committee to oversee how the proposed restructuring would happen.

And, in another sign that Canadian money markets may be inching towards stability, the Bank of Canada yesterday announced it was restoring standard collateral conditions for providing liquidity to financial institutions on an overnight basis. "While money markets continue to experience difficulties, there has been significant progress in the functioning of the overnight market," the bank said in a statement.

During the height of the recent stock-market turmoil in mid-August, the bank widened the kinds of collateral it would accept against lending to include such instruments as provincial securities and commercial paper, as well as the standard government of Canada paper.

Meanwhile, the committee overseeing the commercial paper rescue plan will be chaired by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt lawyer Purdy Crawford and will include representatives of Canaccord Capital Corp., Canada Post, National Bank Financial and the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec.

"Our investor committee will be looking to implement a solution that addresses the best interests of investors generally, and at the same time allows for a successful restructuring and a return to market stability for these investments," Mr. Crawford said in a statement.

Under the so-called "Montreal Proposal" troubled asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) would be converted into longer-term debt with maturities stretching out in some cases several years into the future as a way to improve chances that investors will get their money back. Details of how the conversion will happen will likely be sorted out by this new committee.

Canadian investors stuck with illiquid asset-backed commercial paper should hang on to their investments while an investor committee attempts to find a solution that will get their money back, said the head of a committee overseeing a rescue plan.

``Hopefully if everybody stays cool and somebody doesn't start pulling plugs, this thing will work out without them having any losses,'' Purdy Crawford, who was named yesterday to lead the committee, said in a telephone interview today. ``If everybody stays cool, that's the key.''

A Pan Canadian Committee Chaired by Mr. Purdy Crawford has been formed today to oversee the proposed structuring process of the Third Party ABCP. This Committee, which includes investors who were signatories to the Montreal Proposal plus other significant holders, brings a broad cross section of investors with a national perspective, relevant experience and associations with each of private business, institutional investors, government agencies and crown corporations. Comprising this Investor Committee are now:

<< - Mr. John Crichton, President and Chief Executive Officer, NAV CANADA. - Mr. Alban D'Amours, President and Chief Executive Officer, Desjardins Group; - Mr. Gordon J. Fyfe, President and Chief Executive Officer, PSP Investments; - Mr. Doug Greaves, Vice President Pension Fund and Chief Investment Officer, Canada Post; - Mr. Rowland Kelly, Interim CEO, Credit Union Central of British Columbia, representing Credit Union Central of Canada; - Ms. Karen Kinsley, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation; - Mr. Mark Maybank, President & Chief Operating Officer, Canaccord Capital Corporation (Canadian Operating Subsidiary); - Mr. Dave Mowat, President and Chief Executive Officer, ATB Financial; - Mr. Ricardo Pascoe, Co-President and Co-Chief Executive Officer, National Bank Financial Group; - Mr. David G. Patterson, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Northwater Capital Management; - Mr. Henri-Paul Rousseau, President and Chief Executive Officer, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec; - Mr. Jim Scopick, President and Chief Executive Officer, Credit Union

And Purdy Crawford is a player. After all he founded the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), which is the East coast clone of the right wing think tank the Fraser Institute.

Purdy is an excellent example of the modern member of the capitalist ruling class. They secure their positions of power through interlocking boards of directorships. He adapted his corporations during the mean and lean eighties and then in the booming nineties to create large cap companies capable of predatory take overs or become subject of take overs themselves. He adapted corporations into a new tax shelter; Income Trusts.

He recognized the current condition of capitalism; mergers and acquisitions in the age of modern financial globalization. This resulted in large scale accumulation in a single company, selling off parts of itself to global flows of capital.

It resulted in the selling off of Canadian companies to foreign investors in order to mass enough capital to take over someone else, or be gobbled up in the process if your gamble fails as was the case with Inco ,which Purdy was a director of .

And as he did with Imperial Tobacco severing it from Imasco. Which was finally bought out by its parent, the notorious cigarette smuggling BAT.

As a spokesperson for big tobacco he defended targeted marketing at youth. This qualifies him to speak on; Ethics, Values and Business Success - Purdy Crawford (May 11, 2006)

As a securities adviser he promotes his ideal of market consolidation with a single Securities commission in Canada. In a way this melt down in the market has proven his point and in rescuing the paper market will lessen the objections to it by provincial mandarins.

Does it all really matter as far as small investors are concerned? My hunch is, not very much. Of course we would all welcome a lean, mean federal commission spearheaded by a home-grown Eliot Spitzer to keep Bay Street in line. However, that is far from what Mr. Crawford and some of the other reformers have in mind. Their blueprint calls for another bureaucratic restructuring rather than a caped crusader.

Take a look at the Crawford Panel’s proposals. We are to have a new agency composed of 13 provincial and federal representatives, each having a single, equal vote, which would approve all the rules and select the regulators. In other words, the existing 13 commissions would be gathered under one roof and given equal power. The mind boggles. Can you imagine Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta all being consistently on the short end of 7 to 6 votes?

Our Global Capital Markets Plan has four key building blocks.

• First of all, enhancing regulatory efficiency by creating a common securities regulator that is principles-based, proportionate and tailored to the unique makeup of Canada’s capital markets.

• Secondly, strengthening market integrity by enhancing investor protection, pursuing the highest standards of governance and enforcing our laws more vigorously.

• Thirdly, by creating greater opportunity for business and investors by pursuing free trade in securities with the United States and other Group of Seven (G7) countries. And I’ll come back to that in a moment about where that is at in terms of our discussions internationally.

• And fourth, improving investor information by promoting financial literacy, particularly for young Canadians, by developing new financial education materials.

So these four building blocks make up the foundation of our Capital Markets Plan. None are mutually exclusive. They all support one another, and I would like to take the next few minutes to focus on one building block in particular, and that is strengthening market integrity, which begins with enforcement.

With Purdy's connections to Montreal the city and the exchange, as well as having a home there and being on the Board of McGill. Gee where do you think they would put a national Securities commission.

Canadian Securities Commission,
Calgary, Alta (or Montréal, PQ?)

PORTRAIT OF A CAPITALIST

Purdy Crawford COUNSEL Toronto Office Email: pcrawford@osler.com Tel: (416) 862-5869 Year of Call Fax: (416) 862-666 Ontario 1958 Nova Scotia 1

Purdy is a native of Five Islands, Nova Scotia, and a graduate of Mount Allison University, Dalhousie Law School and Harvard Law School. He pursued his legal career with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, practising primarily in the corporate/commercial area. He left Osler to join Imasco as C.E.O. in 1985 - retiring as C.E.O. in 1995 but continuing as non-executive Chairman of Imasco Limited, CT Financial Services Inc. and Canada Trustco Mortgage Company until February 1, 2000.

Purdy rejoined Osler as Counsel in March 2000. He sits on the boards of several large Canadian and U.S. public companies. Purdy is Chair of the Five-Year Review Committee, appointed to review securities legislation in Ontario, and former Chair of the Securities Industry Committee on Analyst Standards. In 1996 he became an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was inducted into the Business Hall of Fame of Nova Scotia in 1997 and became a Fellow of the Institute of Corporate Directors in 1999. In 2000 he was inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame and named Ivey Business Leader of the Year. He is Chancellor Emeritus of Mount Allison University.

He was the Chairman of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), Chancellor of Mount Allison University, and Chairman of AT&T Canada Corporation. He was a corporate director for SEAMARK Asset Management Ltd. and is currently a member of the board of the Canadian National Railway Company. He is a Governor of the University of Waterloo.

Timeline: Purdy Crawford

Toronto
Born Nov. 7, 1931, in Five Islands, Nova Scotia
Allstream chair, corporate governance advocate

1958: Starts practising at law firm Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt; specializes in corporate-commercial area. Becomes senior partner in 1970.

1985: Joins tobacco giant Imasco Ltd. as president and COO. Is named CEO in 1986. Transforms it into a diversified holding company.

1995: Retires as Imasco CEO, but continues as non-executive chair until February 2000, when Imasco is bought by British American Tobacco.

G7 Summit, Halifax, Purdy Crawford, co-chairman of the summit sponsorship committee.

1999: Joins AT&T Canada as a director. Becomes chairman a year later. Oversees its transformation into debt-free Allstream.

2000: Rejoins Oslers as counsel. Chairs Ontario minister of finance's five year review committee, which examines securities regulations.

He is chairman of the Ontario Government's Crawford Panel on a Single Canadian Securities Regulator.

Director MTS/Allstream

Purdy Crawford Named Conference Board's 2003 Honorary Associate

The CPP Investment Board has hired Toronto lawyer Purdy Crawford as an external adviser on conflicts of interest and ethical conduct, providing a new contact for whistleblowers.

John MacNaughton, chief executive officer of the CPP Investment Board, said yesterday no other federal Crown Corporation has created a similar position with an outside, independent person in the job.

The CPP Investment Board was formed in 1997 to manage the assets of the Canada Pension Plan.

It is currently responsible for overseeing $31-billion in equity, real estate and infrastructure assets, and will also assume control of a further $35-billion in bonds and cash investments over the next few years.

Clearwater Seafoods Income Fund, the Board of Directors of CS ManPar Inc. (the managing partner of Clearwater Seafoods Limited Partnership),

CRAWFORD, Purdy, O.C., Q.C., B.A., LL.B., LL.M.; b. Five Islands, N.S. 1931; e. Mt. Allison Univ. B.A. 1952; Dalhousie Univ. LL.B. 1955; Harvard Law Sch. LL.M. 1956;

Member of the Board of AT&T Canada
Member of the Board of Avenor
Member of the Board of Camco Inc.
Member of the Board of Canada Trustco Mortgage Company
Member of the Board of Canadian National Railway
Member of the Board of CT Financial Services Inc.
Member of the Board of Dominion Textile Inc.
Member of the Board of Foot Locker
Member of the Board of Imasco Limited (as Chairman, 1985-2000)
Member of the Board of Inco Limited
Member of the Board of Maple Leaf Foods (1973-)
Member of the Board of Nova Scotia Power
Member of the Board of Petro-Canada
Member of the Board of Trinova Corporation
Member of the Board of Woolworth (-1997)

Governor Emeritus, McGill Univ.; Chancellor, Mount Allison Univ.; called to Bar of N.S. 1956, of Ont. 1958; student with Osler Hoskin & Harcourt 1956, Assoc. Lawyer 1958, Partner 1962, Sr. Partner 1970-85; cr. Q.C. 1968; Special Lectr. Osgoode Hall Law Sch. 1964-68, Univ. of Toronto Law Sch. 1969-71, Bar Admission Course 1969-72;

Co.-Secy. Atty. Gen.'s Comte. on Securities Leg. 1964-65; Chrmn. Ont. Taxation Sub-sec., Cdn. Bar Assn. 1966-68; Treas. Nat. Taxation Sec. 1968-70; Past mem. various comtes. on taxation and of Bd. Govs. Cdn. Tax Foundation 1970-72; Cdn. Inst. of Ch. Accts. Special Comm. to Examine Role of Auditor 1977-78; Accounting Rsch. Adv. Bd. 1977-79;

Chrmn. & C.E.O., Imasco Ltd. 1985-95;

Officer, Order of Canada 1996;

United Church;

recreations: bicycling, golf, skiing;

Canada's National Ballet School, Honorary Circle Members

Shannon School of Business

The National Centre for Business Law UBC

Canada's Outstanding CEO of the Year™ Advisory Board

Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants Advisory Board

Board Member; Dalhousie University, McGill, University of Western Ontario, UPEI.

Clubs: Mount Bruno Golf; Parrsboro Golf (N.S.); Mount Royal; Forest & Stream; Granite; Toronto; Devil's Pulpit Golf & Country; York Downs Golf & Country; Caledon Ski; The Club Pelican Bay (Florida);

Homes: Five Islands, N.S. (summer) Belfountain, Ont., Toronto, Ont. and Westmount, Que.;

Office: Toronto, Ont.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I want to thank Purdy Crawford for his introduction. Purdy is truly a great Canadian. I speak for a whole generation of leaders in many different spheres across Canada – who would say that Purdy Crawford made a difference in their lives. If you had to choose one role model, Purdy Crawford would be, for many of us, our first choice.

Ed Clark, President & CEO, TD Bank Financial Group
Remarks at the 2007 Mount Allison University Convocation.

Of course for workers, Purdy is less of a role model, as he sits on the board of CN. No doubt in part it was thanks to his government connections that helped push the Federal Government to legislate away CN workers right to strike this spring.
So explain to the CN workers about how E. Hunter Harrison's compensation made off their backs, is judged 'equitable'.

65 Means Freedom to Start a Whole New Career - March 15, 2006

Then there's Purdy Crawford. At 74, he serves on several corporate boards and is currently heading the initiative aimed at creating a single national securities regulator.

"I guess I'll slowly retire as I feel less energetic, but retirement is not the way I think about it," says Mr. Crawford, the former chief executive officer of Imasco Ltd.

Canadian workers should prepare to work beyond 65 while Purdy and pals use their pension funds for capital investment and promote extending the age of retirement.

Indeed, on a superficial level the notion of "holding corporations accountable" must seem rather appealing to a relatively broad cross-section of society, including many social and community advocates who have jumped on the corporate governance bandwagon. The language of "social responsibility" is often invoked in discussions of governance reform. Those calling for tighter control over corporate managers are often called "activists." But to whom are they asking that corporate managers be held accountable? And on what criteria? These are important questions not always addressed by those, including those on the left, beating the drum for new governance standards.

While discussing the high falutin ideals of directors control over the corporation, and its impact on CEO compensation he leaves out the need for more civil society representation on the board, from union elected directors to environmentalists, consumer adovcates, non-lawyers, etc.

Early on, the boards I was on were public boards of companies I was the lawyer for. That's a no-no today, and properly so. Boards then, depending on the circumstances, were quite the creation of the CEO. You still get quite a bit of that in the US, but here that shouldn't happen very much anymore. At least it doesn't happen where I'm involved.

Over the last eight or nine years, boards have taken much more control of companies, and CEOs are much more beholden to boards.

When I joined Imasco, I thought I'd been around so I didn't have a lot to learn. That was true of a lot of areas, but it wasn't true of operations. It was an exciting learning curve to understand how Shoppers Drug Mart operates and start adding value.

The same was true with Imperial Tobacco. I became a great believer in great operators. Business schools pay a lot of attention to strategy, but they don't pay enough attention to execution.

I went in at Imasco to become the CEO. I wouldn't have gone to become a lawyer. I might have done that today, by the way--the legal general counsel office reporting to the CEO has become much more significant. The remuneration is comparable to a fairly outstanding lawyer in a law firm. There are no pension plans with a law firm.

"The importance of good governance for confidence in Canadian capital markets" by Purdy Crawford

In the wave of corporate scandals that followed the burst of the bubble on the stock market, confidence in the business community has been badly shaken across North America. And in the subsequent wave of recriminations, business has been confronted with unprecedented scrutiny from government and regulators. Business leaders have been forced to ask about the nature, purpose and value of their enterprises beyond their bottom lines. Purdy Crawford, former chairman of Imasco and Canada Trust, was an advocate of corporate governance long before it became a flavour of the month. He looks beyond the recommendations of the Bennett- Broadbent Report and the Saucier Report in Canada, as well as the Higgs Report in the UK, and offers some simple rules for corporate governance, particularly for enhancing the independence of corporate chairs and directors.

BOARDS OF DIRECTORS - MONITORING FOR
ETHICAL STANDARDS
Purdy Crawford
Counsel to Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
Thursday October 21st, 2004
Purdy Crawford addressed the
October luncheon on the topic of
fiduciary governance. Mr. Crawford
used the Globe & Mail published
rankings of Boards of Directors
of companies that comprised
Canada’s benchmark S&P/TSX
composite index as the springboard
for his analysis on certain problems
in governance rating systems. He identified the inherent
weaknesses of this “tick the box” type approach to measuring
corporate governance and expressed his personal belief
that good long-term financial performance, or an outstanding
C.E.O., should rank higher than any ranking of the
Board of Directors. Mr. Crawford went on to talk of the
distinction between what he named fiduciary governance
(governance designed to police the integrity of the firm)
and value creating governance, and was of the view that
Canadian corporations have performed far better than those
in the US in terms of the former. Despite the current trend to
regulating fiduciary governance, Mr. Crawford expressed a
firm belief in the importance of sound leadership and
discussed the ethics and integrity program at Allstream
Corporation as an example of a solid and effective
approach. Mr. Crawford concluded his remarks by
emphasising that a culture of ethics and integrity is critical
to market credibility and maintaining confidence in the
leadership of the organization.

Then, in 2002, in the aftershock of Enron, and following investor demands to tighten up shoddy financial reporting practices, US Congress introduced the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Canadian regulators later responded with their own set of rules. As John Carchrae, CA, chief accountant at the Ontario Securities Commission, explains, this brought greater prominence to the COSO and COCO frameworks which, although already in place, were not yet in widespread use. (For more details, see “Internal control in evolution” below.)

Purdy Crawford, who was president and CEO of Imasco Ltd. from 1986 to 1995 and a board member of several large public and private companies, is one of those who witnessed the changes in the internal auditor’s role first-hand. More than 10 years ago, he says, “the internal audit function in big companies tended to be sleepy. They were laid back, they were not a strong group.”

Eight or nine years ago things started to change, says Crawford, who is presently counsel at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and is a member of the Canadian Business Hall of Fame. (He also sits on Manitoba Telecom Services Inc.’s board.) CEOs at the helm of corporate giants like General Electric began recruiting “swat teams” of talented internal auditors to be the eyes and ears of the company, uncovering weaknesses and helping management devise solutions to improve processes. “Today, SOX and proposed Canadian-equivalent requirements have certainly underlined the importance of the internal audit function,” he says. “One big role of internal auditing is to ... help external consultants or financial people to set up control mechanisms if they don’t exist or if they need to be strengthened.”

Not only are highly regarded lawyers such as Purdy Crawford, Q.C., and Jean Fraser, of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, Garth Girvan at McCarthy Tétrault, and Les Viner at Torys reading about leadership these days, they are thinking about it, talking about it and taking action. Purdy Crawford, who has rejoined Oslers after most recently serving as Chairman of Canada Trust Financial Services and non-executive Chairman of Imasco, says even before he stopped practising law in 1985 to go to Imasco, he found the Harvard Business Review more interesting than the Harvard Law Review. Les Viner debates theories from the latest management literature. And James Riley at Ogilvy Renault extracts lessons in organizational growth, competition, and strategy from John Keegan’s The Face of Battle and other such military classics. They articulate such psycho-management terms as 360° feedback, EQ, and the importance of “vision”. What has the world come to?! These are supposed to be hardened, no-nonsense corporate lawyers.

“There is a revolution brewing,” exclaimed Tom Peters in 1989. That revolution, the Information/Technology Age, has since arrived and has far exceeded Peters’ predictions in terms of how massively and pervasively it would impact on the rules of economic wealth and growth, what competitive advantage is, and how people live and work. There is another revolution brewing today: in professional services. As global legal services converge and consolidate, as multidisciplinary practices enter the market, as corporate mergers escalate causing even more consolidation in the business client base, and more and more work is transacted cross-border, Canadian law firms find themselves in a difficult position. By all accounts, business is booming.

Of course not everyone is so enamored with Mr. Purdy's defense of corporate Canada when it comes to white collar crime.

---

ASC Chairman Bill Rice and Other Securities Regulators & Experts
Ignore Today's Canadian Press-Decima Poll

Add Alberta Securities Commission Chairman Bill Rice to the list of Canada's securities regulators and legal experts trying to convince us there are few high profile white collar crimes in Canada and that Canadians are less aggressive in the pursuit of law and order than Americans. Bill Rice, David Brown (former OSC Chairman and Current Chairman of the RCMP Restructuring Task Force) , David Wilson (current OSC Chairman) and Purdy Crawford (Bay Street securities lawyer and recognized architect of Canada's current securities enforcement system) are out of sync with the knowledge and standards set by Canadian society, as they are expressed in today's Toronto Star - Canadian Press report on the Canadian Press - Decima poll of Canadian attitudes towards the U.S. Conrad Black verdict and his expected jail sentencing.
"The survey of more than 1,000 Canadians found that only 8 per cent think the American jury was too severe in convicting Black on four of 11 charges earlier this month. Forty-eight per cent say the jury got it about right and 22 per cent said the verdict was not severe enough.
"Decima found that most respondents  69 per cent  would like Black to see jail time in addition to paying a fine. Just 10 per cent believed a fine is ample punishment. Some 29 per cent felt he should be sentenced to 10 years or more in prison, with another 40 per cent feeling that one to nine years would suffice."

Meanwhile, this is what Bill Rice, David Brown, David Wilson and Purdy Crawford have had to say about white collar crime in Canada:
"There's always room to improve, admits Alberta Securities Commission chairman Bill Rice. That includes changing the perception that Canada doesn't aggressively pursue rogue executives. Rice, a former securities lawyer, feels Canada too often is an easy target. Without a trial to match the visibility of Enron or WorldCom, regulators here come up short by comparison. The reality, he says, is that aggressive, U.S-style punitive action isn't the Canadian way when it comes to stock market scandals. "There is an extreme cultural difference in our approach to criminal law enforcement. We certainly don't send people away for 25 years for these kinds of things. "I happen to think our public would be horrified by it."
(Calgary Herald, "Business Scandals dog Canadian markets," dated May 28, 2007)


"David Brown, past chair of the OSC, said, "Canada's come a long way ... I think all of the pieces are in place now. We all need to give it a little more time." And he added that the lack of high-profile convictions in Canada could have something to do with a lack of high-profile crimes. "We don't seem to have seen here in Canada the high-profile failures that they have in the U.S.," he said." (Toronto Star, "Soft on White Collar Crime," May 29, 2006)



"But a small minority of firms and individuals prey on investors. Unfortunately, this small group has a disproportionate impact on the perception of Canadas capital markets. I understand the challenge of trying to close a gap between perception and reality." (OSC Chairman David Wilson Speech, "A Common Objective: Strong Investor Protection," April 26, 2007)


"Purdy Crawford, a lawyer who headed a commission that urged the creation of a single national securities regulator, said he was disappointed Canada didn't take the initiative to prosecute Black before he went to trial in the United States. "The best thing that ever could have happened to him would have been to have been prosecuted here," said Crawford, although he added the U.S. authorities' "no holds barred" approaches are also overzealous to a fault."
(Canadian Business Online,"Securities Enforcement Still Lacks Teeth Experts Say," July 17, 2007)
Canadians are well aware that economic crime is a serious problem in Canada, so the efforts of Bill Rice, David Brown, David Wilson and Purdy Crawford to coverup this fact are falling on deaf ears. The longstanding efforts of these men to coverup white collar crime and to mitigate Canada's prosecutorial response to it can only be interpreted to be a breach of trust to the Canadian people.

In a recent survey (EKOS Survey, Wave 3, 2005-2006), Canadians said economic crime was the most serious problem in Canada at 67%, gang violence rated second at 66%, and gun crime and organized crime both rated third at 54%. Terrorism rated last at 14%. When asked about what type of crimes Canadians were personally more concerned about, those polled rated economic crime first at 68%, gang violence second at 59%, gun crime third at 51%, property crime forth at 48%. Terrorism rated last at 30%.

(RCMP Integrated Market Enforcement Teams Accountability Framework - Fiscal Year Ending March 31, 2006)

On April 26, 2007, the National Pensioners & Senior Citizens Federation (450 clubs and chapters with 1,000,000 members), the United Senior Citizens of Ontario (1000 clubs with 300,000 members) and the Small Investors Protection Association jointly requested a national inquiry on the malfunctioning of Canada's securities and accounting regulation and white collar crime enforcement system.



Diane Urquhart

Independent Analyst

See:

Sub Prime Exploitation

Canadian Banks and The Great Depression

Wall Street Deja Vu

Housing Crash the New S&L Crisis

US Housing Market Crash

The Carbon Market Myth

Are Income Trusts A Ponzi Scheme

Scandal in the Alberta Stock Exchange

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
railroad, CN, Imasco, Imperial Tobbacco,
Purdy Crawford, ruling class
asset-backed commercial paper , unions, labour, strike, Hunter Harrison,labor, workers, Canada
homes, mortgages, housing, bubble, US, economy, Canada, sub-prime mortgage, Wall Street, crash, recession,Smoking,

Chandler Time

For those of you in Calgary don't forget to mark your calendars. It's Chandler time.

September 12, 2007 - Calgary Egmont Constituency Association special Nomination Rules meeting

Of course he is not the only Conservative running for the nomination. Jonathan Davies is his opponent. And like Chandler, he was associated with Rob Anders. He was the Conservatives lawyer in the dust up between Anders and the riding association.

Knox v. Conservative Party of Canada (2006): Challenge to the Conservative Party nomination in the Calgary-West riding;

And along with Chandler he shares an endorsement by Paul Jackson.

"... one of the sharpest minds I've seen in the legal world."
Paul Jackson, Calgary Sun

Chandler's success in getting the Calgary Egmont nomination will determine if this web site gets launched.

oneRidingAtATime is Under Construction

But given who is running against him I wouldn't hold my breathe of seeing it. Unless he can prove this Tory insider, a scion of the back room boys is a Liberal too.

(Eye Candy)

WINNER

Jonathan Davies

(Perpetual)

LOSER

Craig Chandler

SEE:

Chandler Says Breed More Conservatives

I Was Misquoted

Chandler Redux

Outing Chandler

Vote Conservative...Or Else

g posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Alberta, Premier,Ed Stelmach,
Social Credit,Socreds, PC, Calgary, Party of Calgary, politics, leadership, Conservatives, Edmonton, One Party State,Jonathan Davies, Politics, Calgary Egmont,Craig Chandler, social conservatives, PGIB,
Alberta, MLA,

I Was Misquoted

Can you misquote yourself? Apparently according to Craig Chandler.Of course a little bit of careful post blog editing helps too.

Here is his original post;

"Alberta is growing in a way that was never expected and many of the people coming here do not truly appreciate Alberta or even understand the history of this province or the relationship with the Alberta Progressive Conservative party. To those of you who have come to our great land from out of province, you need to remember that you came to our home and we vote conservative. You came here to enjoy our economy, our natural beauty and more. This is our home and ... If you wish to live here, you must adapt to our rules and our voting patterns or leave. Conservatism is our culture. Do not destroy what we have created."

And here is his revision.

Alberta is growing in a way that was never expected and many of the people coming here do not truly appreciate Alberta or even understand the history of this province or the relationship with small 'c' conservatism. To those of you who have come to our great land from out of province, you need to remember that you came here to our home and we vote conservative (meaning Social Credit, Alberta Alliance, Wildrose or the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party). You came here to enjoy our economy, our natural beauty and more. This is our home and if you wish to live here, you must adapt to our rules and our voting patterns, or leave. Conservatism is our culture. Do not destroy what we have created.

However since Chandler is a historical revisionist, like others of his ilk, who would have us believe Alberta has always been a conservative bastion. When exposed they revise their stories.

Like he did by saying Link Byfield endorsed him as a candidate for Egmont, implying he did so as a Director of the Wild Rose Party, when in fact it is a quote from the past prior to the creation of the Wild Rose Party.

And of course he accuses those who expose his bigotry of being Liberals.

"The reality is that I have now signed up more members to the Alberta PC Party in Calgary-Egmont than the Liberals had votes in the last election in this area. Calgarians will decide who gets elected, not a well-known Liberal journalist from Edmonton."

Whether they are or not since it's an assertion with no evidence just like his assertion that the majority of Albertans are conservatives.


SEE:

Chandler Redux

Outing Chandler

Vote Conservative...Or Else

g posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Alberta, Premier,Ed Stelmach,
Social Credit,Socreds, PC, Calgary, Party of Calgary, politics, leadership, Conservatives, Edmonton, One Party State,History, Politics, Economics,Craig Chandler, social conservatives, PGIB,
Alberta, MLA,

No Rush

The Harper Green Plan was to come into effect by 2050. No rush. By then we will also have Ice Breakers, but they will be redundant.

Most polar bears could die out by 2050

Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 — and the entire population gone from Alaska — because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.

Only in the northern Canadian Arctic islands and the west coast of Greenland are any of the world's 16,000 polar bears expected to survive through the end of the century, said the U.S. Geological Survey, which is the scientific arm of the Interior Department.

Florida airboats glide on thin Arctic ice

As climate change thins sea ice around the Arctic, making travel by snowmobile during the spring precarious even for practiced hunters, one solution may be to borrow technology from the swampy Everglades of Florida.

Arctic Kingdom Marine Expeditions is reporting success in using airboats to guide tours to the floe edge outside Pond Inlet this summer.

A study by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has found that the Arctic ice is melting faster than expected and will decline by 40 percent by 2050.

The estimate is based on a study of national and international computer models keeping the period 1979-1999 as a base. An earlier report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had found that sea loss was greater in the summer in Arctic Sea located north of Alaska, Canada and Asia.

The IPCC report had placed the blame on greenhouse gases and had said that unless these emissions were controlled, the Arctic Sea would almost disappear by the turn of the century.

In a year when the Arctic ice cap has shrunk to the lowest level ever recorded, a new analysis from Seattle scientists says global warming will accelerate future melting much more than previously expected.

About 40 percent of the floating ice that normally blankets the top of the world during the summer will be gone by 2050, says James Overland, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. Earlier studies had predicted it would be nearly a century before that much ice vanished.

"This is a major change," Overland said. "This is actually moving the threshold up.

"If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have said it wouldn't happen until 2070 or 2100," said Serreze, who was not involved in Overland's project.

Even a 40 percent loss of ice would be devastating to ice-dependent animals such as walruses and ringed seals, said Overland, who shared his data with federal officials considering an endangered-species listing for polar bears.

Gray whales will suffer if the ice-loving crustaceans they feed on disappear. But some commercially important fish species, like pollock and salmon, could thrive in warmer water — a possible boon for the Seattle-based fishing fleet that plies Alaska's Bering Sea. There are also hints, though, that the disappearance of ice would favor predators that undermine fisheries, Overland said.

Shipping will benefit if the Northwest Passage across the Canadian Arctic melts out each summer — as it did for the first time this year.

Of course that is why we are having the international race to declare sovereignty over the arctic because heck there is a silver lining to global warming after all.

Exploring for Oil in the Arctic's 'Great Frontier'

"We think it's a great frontier ...." Fox says. "The belief is that about 25 percent of the world's remaining reserves are in the Arctic. And I think it's a major play for us."

Even the climate seemed to be cooperating with that major play. Polar ice retreated this summer from the spot where Shell plans to explore for oil.

Shell would hardly need its reinforced hulls, or rented Russian icebreakers.

Global Warming May Cancel Next Ice Age

The effects of burning fossil fuels today will extend long beyond the next couple of hundred years, possibly delaying the onset of Earth's next ice age, more properly called a glacial period, says researcher Toby Tyrrell of the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.

SEE:

Polar Bears Threaten Tories Arctic Sovereignty

Tories Ignore Arctic Climate Change

Petrocan's Arctic Sovereignty

US Declares War For The Arctic

Mackenzie Valley Pipeline

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Tory Transparency: GNEP

Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

Nuclear Energy Partnership? The government is planning to sign a Nuclear Energy Partnership? Was this one of the Conservatives five priorities? It was not publicly discussed nor raised in the House. It was a side deal from John Howard's visit to Canada.

Ottawa near decision on nuclear plan: Bernier

"Australia and Canada, we are two major producers in the world and we have considerable interests in whatever the United States and the international community have in mind in terms of future uranium development and production and marketing," said Bernier. "So we will have a decision in the near future about our participation."

No pressure for Canada to state intentions on nuclear partnership

With barely a week to go before a key planning meeting in Vienna on the proposed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the world's biggest uranium producer still hasn't said publicly whether it will attend the talks.

The Conservative government has been tight-lipped about the so-called GNEP, saying only that Canada is reviewing the matter.

The initiative is controversial because it proposes that uranium exporting countries bring back spent fuel for disposal on their home turf.

Harper, in his first public comment on the proposed partnership since May 2006, denied that Canada is feeling any pressure to join despite the involvement of key allies Australia and the United States. Australia announced its intention to join this week.

The Harper government's hesitation in declaring a clear position on GNEP isn't surprising, despite more than a year of internal government discussions and cross-border talks.

Internal government talking points from 2006, obtained by The Canadian Press, showed enthusiasm for the proposal, but that has never been expressed publicly.

Oh dear that certainly is counter intuitive to the Canadian ideal of Public Service and Public Policy.

Transparency? Accountability? Responsible government? I think not. Anymore than the Harpocrites negotiations around the SPP. But this more than just about jelly beans.


SEE:

Nuclear NIMBY


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Bin Laden Transcript

Bin Laden Inc. takes on the American Empire.(transcript)

This is why I tell you: as you liberated yourselves before from the slavery of monks, kings, and feudalism, you should liberate yourselves from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system.

If you were to ponder it well, you would find that in the end, it is a system harsher and fiercer than your systems in the Middle Ages. The capitalist system seeks to turn the entire world into a fiefdom of the major corporations under the label of “globalization” in order to protect democracy.

And Iraq and Afghanistan and their tragedies; and the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages; global warming and its woes; and the abject poverty and tragic hunger in Africa: all of this is but one side of the grim face of this global system.

So it is imperative that you free yourselves from all of that and search for an alternative, upright methodology in which it is not the business of any class of humanity to lay down its own laws to its own advantage at the expense of the other classes as is the case with you, since the essence of man-made positive laws is that they serve the interests of those with the capital and thus make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

The infallible methodology is the methodology of Allah, the Most High, who created the heavens and earth and created the Creation and is the Most Kind and All-Informed and the Knower of the souls ofHis slaves and the methodology that best suits them.

It is asymmetrical Imperialism versus the new Imperium. The modern manichiest duality. Bin Laden Inc. is a Muslim engineering, security and banking corporation in competition for regional hegemony with USA Inc. and it's partner's Halliburton and Bechtel. Not to be confused with the family business back in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi Binladin Group is not liable for the Sept. 11 attacks, attorneys for the multinational engineering firm maintain, because it made Osama bin Laden surrender his stake in the company 14 years ago. Responding in federal court to lawsuits over the attacks, the lawyers wrote that in 1993, the terrorist mastermind was forced out as a shareholder in two companies his family owns.

A judge had ordered Saudi Binladin Group in July to provide additional information about where the money for Osama bin Laden's 2 percent stake in the company went.

Osama bin Laden in lecturing America sounds like Ben Bernake, lecturing on the financial impacts of the housing crisis, and the coming recession. And well he should he is the scion of the largest telecommunications and engineering family in Saudi Arabia. He is a self made man. Not unlike Donald Trump.

His anti-capitalism in the transcript is a medievalist reaction, he is one of many new prophets claiming to be the Mahdi, and he is using the Wahhabist base that is the Saudi state religion.

The Sept. 11 Commission concluded that the Sudanese government took Osama bin Laden's assets when he left Sudan in 1996.

"He left Sudan with practically nothing," the commission concluded.

"When bin Laden arrived in Afghanistan, he relied on the Taliban until he was able to reinvigorate his fundraising efforts by drawing on ties to wealthy Saudi individuals that he had established during the Afghan war in the 1980s."

Before Osama bin Laden, it might be argued, there was the Mahdi. Over 120 years ago, a messianic leader united the tribes of the Sudan in a bloody revolt against their Turkish-Egyptian masters. Proclaiming that Islam had been corrupted and defiled by "foreigners," this Islamic warrior declared a jihad against the "outsiders."

Although not alike in all significant respects--the Mahdi, for example, came from humble origins, whereas bin Laden is the scion of a Saudi billionaire--the desert warrior and the peripatetic leader of al Qaeda show some striking similarities. There is a shared connection with Sudan, from which bin Laden was expelled in 1996. Both men tangled militarily with the major power of their eras. Both believed themselves to be directed by Allah to lead a holy war, to eradicate the corrupting influence of the West from Muslim lands and, in the process, spread Islam.

The Islamic Traditions of Wahhabism and Salafiyya

And he knows how to use the media to get out his message, hence he has gained weight, changed his beard, is dressed well.

He is a businessman lecturing to his peers. He is not yet dead, nor captured the war on terror so far has been a failure, just like Iraq. This is what his spectacular appearance says.

In any case, it may be that the point of terror is not merely to disrupt spectacle by producing indigestible images, but to exceed it. Retort highlight the paradox of the vanguard Islamic revolutionaries, who deny themselves all that capitalist spectacle has to offer, and harden themselves against mundane sentiment and appetite, yet who still hold to the effectiveness of the image, and propagate images of their acts through websites.

His is not class war but global inter-Imperialist rivalry. America is in the way of his war against the current ruling classes in the Middle East. Always was.

Retort argue that the result of the spectacular defeat of 9-11 has been to push the state into actions that are as much governed by spectacle as by material considerations. Warfare has been elevated from an intermittent action to permanent imperial conflict. They claim that one frequently repeated charge of the anti-war movement "that the war was fought for oil" when taken too simply, ignores the "partially non-factual imperatives of capital accumulation." These include the effort to repair spectacle, and the drive to normalize war in the minds of citizens.

SEE:

Osama bin Laden Republican


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Osama bin Laden Republican

Osama promises that under Islamic rule, you'd be free of the Tax Man forever. "There are no taxes in Islam," he says in the much anticipated new tape, "only a limited Zakaat (alms) totaling 2.5 percent."

Wait a minute that still is a tax.




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Pay Back II

The Harpocrites throw some crumbs to Calgary.

Calgary home to new mental health commission

In true Orwellian style it turns out that Calgary's advantage is;

"Calgary is the only major regional health authority in the country without a specialized psychiatric hospital, and that's actually an advantage."

More P O R K.

But wait the Alberta Advantage is at play here too, the idea of further private public delivery (P3) of services. More Medicare reform through the back door.

"The Alberta Mental Health Board is a unique structure, across the country, in terms of the way they look at mental health policy without actually delivering services. I think we can learn a lot from that," Kirby said Friday.

And of course since the government doesn't deliver services it waits for the community or market to create those services after the fact. First it and closed existing hospital beds, leaving folks to fend for themselves.

It has also gone further down the road in moving away form institutional care to more community-based programs, Kirby said.

Sure which has lead to this; homelessness.

And after all since Alberta is booming it makes sense to set it up here since;

Work Is A Danger To Your Mental Health

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Felix

No wall to wall coverage on America's 24/7 cable news networks in the aftermath of last weeks fatal double Hurricanes. Because of course they did not hit the U.S.

What might have happened if the hurricanes had veered north into the United States instead of churning on similar paths west through the Caribbean?

Instead they look out to the Atlantic.

Invest 99L - Possible tropical depression off the US east coast

The Miskito Indians were the excuse used by the American created the Contra's in their war against the current President of Nicaragua. But they seem to have forgotten them now.

Felix's dead wash ashore
PUERTO CABEZAS, Nicaragua–Bodies of Miskito Indians killed by Hurricane Felix floated in the Caribbean off Central America and washed up on beaches yesterday as the death toll from the storm rose to almost 100.

And then the numbers increased.

Hurricane death toll hits 130 on Nicaragua coast


Felix was as strong as Mitch which hit just nine years ago. Not a common hurricane but a force 5 massive damaging Hurricane not worthy of more than a mere mention between reports on missing people and Fred Thompson's announcement of running for President.

The disaster industry will so get underway reconstructing the devastated countries according to its neo-con agenda.

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been imposing shock therapy on countries in various states of shock for at least three decades, most notably after Latin America’s military coups and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet many observers say that today’s disaster capitalism really hit its stride with Hurricane Mitch. For a week in October 1998, Mitch parked itself over Central America, swallowing villages whole and killing more than 9,000. Already impoverished countries were desperate for reconstruction aid -- and it came, but with strings attached. In the two months after Mitch struck, with the country still knee-deep in rubble, corpses and mud, the Honduran congress initiated what the Financial Times called “speed sell-offs after the storm.” It passed laws allowing the privatization of airports, seaports and highways and fast-tracked plans to privatize the state telephone company, the national electric company and parts of the water sector. It overturned land-reform laws and made it easier for foreigners to buy and sell property. It was much the same in neighboring countries: In the same two months, Guatemala announced plans to sell off its phone system, and Nicaragua did likewise, along with its electric company and its petroleum sector.

All of the privatization plans were pushed aggressively by the usual suspects. According to the Wall Street Journal, “the World Bank and International Monetary Fund had thrown their weight behind the [telecom] sale, making it a condition for release of roughly $47 million in aid annually over three years and linking it to about $4.4 billion in foreign-debt relief for Nicaragua.”

Now the bank is using the December 26 tsunami to push through its cookie-cutter policies. The most devastated countries have seen almost no debt relief, and most of the World Bank’s emergency aid has come in the form of loans, not grants. Rather than emphasizing the need to help the small fishing communities -- more than 80 percent of the wave’s victims -- the bank is pushing for expansion of the tourism sector and industrial fish farms. As for the damaged public infrastructure, like roads and schools, bank documents recognize that re-building them “may strain public finances” and suggest that governments consider privatization (yes, they have only one idea). “For certain investments,” notes the bank’s tsunami-response plan, “it may be appropriate to utilize private financing.”

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Brave New World

When I went to high school utopian and dystopian novels were considered must reading in social studies class. And this reminded me of Aldous Huxely's brilliant, and underappreciated, dystopian society of Brave New World.

Who is human? Do Chimeras have souls?

The English have decided that they will allow their scientists to combine human genes with animal genes to make embryos.

The embryos will not be a few human genes in an animal embryo, or a few animal genes in a human embryo, but a full blown merger of animal eggs and bird eggs to form a “chimera”, a mixed animal human being.

While the author, who opposes this on moral grounds, refers to H.G. Wells, Island of Dr. Moreau, and the more obscure Cordwainer Smith! Whom I also read while attending high school. Checking on his bio, I discover another influence on my theory of conspiratology.

Which seems appropriate given the conspiracies and conspiracy theories abounding around Chimera's.

Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal.

Writers ranging from ancient Greek and Hindu poets to novelist Michael Crichton have all envisioned the fictional possibility of creating human-animal hybrids. The notion of "chimeras" was particularly horrifying to H. G. Wells, author of "The Island of Dr. Moreau."

But over the past two years, the subject has quietly made its way into scientific journals. Unbeknownst to most Americans, today the creation of human-animal chimeras represents a valuable experimental tool that could revolutionize science and medicine.

However, the creation of these hybrid organisms also raises ethical questions: What rights should these organisms possess?

Great Britain has already begun to take up the question; an official government report released last month backed the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos).

One of the main forces driving research in this area is the widespread interest in human embryonic stem cells. In vitro experiments suggest that these cells can differentiate into any cell type in the body, but whether they would retain that potential if implanted in an actual human body is not yet clear.

Chimera embryos have right to life, say bishops

A recent article (subscription required) in the NY Times Science section discusses the role of interspecies chimeras in biomedical research. They point out the chimeric organisms are nothing new:

“Biologists have been generating chimeras for years, though until now of a generally bland variety. If you mix the embryonic cells of a black mouse and a white mouse, you get a patchwork mouse, in which the cells from the two donors contribute to the coat and to tissues throughout the body. Cells can also be added at a later stage to specific organs; people who carry pig heart valves are, at least technically, chimeric.”

Regardless of the minimal ethical controversy amongst biologists, new research using other animals (e.g., pigs) to harvest human organs derived from progenitor cells has the potential to "gross out" most Americans. In essence, it's analogous to watching a horror film with a mad scientist manipulating the natural order for some (often undefined) egomaniacal purpose.

The Stranger Within

New Scientist vol 180 issue 2421 - 15 November 2003, page 34

Human chimeras were once thought to be so rare as to be just a curiosity.
But there's a little bit of someone else in all of us, says Claire
Ainsworth, and sometimes much more...

EXPLAIN this. You are a doctor and one of your patients, a 52-year- old
woman, comes to see you, very upset. Tests have revealed something
unbelievable about two of her three grown-up sons. Although
she conceived them naturally with her husband, who is definitely
their father, the tests say she isn't their biological mother.
Somehow she has given birth to somebody else's children.

This isn't a trick question - it's a genuine case that Margot Kruskall, a
doctor at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston,
Massachusetts, was faced with five years ago. The patient, who we will
call Jane, needed a kidney transplant, and so her family underwent blood
tests to see if any of them would make a suitable donor. When the results
came back, Jane was hoping for good news.

Instead she received a hammer blow. The letter told her outright that
two of her three sons could not be hers. What was going on?

It took Kruskall and her team two years to crack the riddle. In the end
they discovered that Jane is a chimera, a mixture of two individuals -
non-identical twin sisters - who fused in the womb and grew into a single
body. Some parts of her are derived from one twin, others from the other.
It seems bizarre that this can happen at all, but Jane's is not an
isolated case. Around 30 similar instances of chimerism have been
reported, and there are probably many more out there who will never
discover their unusual origins.

SEE

Homunuclus

Chickens Have Teeth!!!

Dialectical Science-JBS Haldane

Bring on the Clones

GOTHIC CAPITALISM

Whose Family Values?

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